KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Imagine being separated from your newborn for the first two days of their life. A metro hospital just launched a new policy to help control the H1N1 virus.
St. Luke's Hospital has separated at least one new mom and her baby because she showed signs of having the virus. The good news? The baby didn't get sick.
From here on out, any pregnant woman who comes into St. Luke's with symptoms (100 plus fever, cough, sore throat etc.) will be separated from her newborn for 48 hours or until she gets better.
She'll take Tamiflu and pump milk. Her significant other will feed the baby who will stay in the pediatric ward.
The hospital says patients have been receptive to the new policy so far.
"It is hard but so far, everybody has been thankful for the rules, respectful because everyone wants to go home healthy and well and that's what we've been doing, sending home families healthy and well," said Erica Grover, a Registered Nurse at St. Luke's Hospital.
The other piece of the new H1N1 policy at St. Luke's Hospital is that no one under 14 years old except siblings can be in the maternity ward.
